For the last three years, Danny Cohen has been in charge of the UK’s most
controversial “youth” TV channel, BBC Three, commissioning programmes
including Hotter Than My Mother and Snog Marry Avoid?

Previously, he had been the boss of Channel 4’s youth channel E4, and directly involved in the Celebrity Big Brother race row in 2007. But now, at the age of just 36, Mr Cohen is to take responsibility for Antiques Roadshow and Question Time as the youngest ever controller of BBC One.

Mr Cohen was the hot favourite to take on the role after the previous controller, Jay Hunt, last month announced her departure to run Channel 4. The future of BBC Three, which costs £92million a year, has come under renewed scrutiny in the wake of threats by Jeremy Hunt, the culture secretary, to cut the licence fee from 2012. When Baroness (PD) James savaged Mark Thompson, the BBC’s director-general, on the Today programme at the end of last year, she suggested that it was hard to see how some of BBC Three’s programmes - including Dog Borstal and Britain’s Most Embarrassing Pets - qualified as public service broadcasting.

But Mr Cohen is highly regarded in the TV industry and by senior BBC executives, especially his boss, director of television Jana Bennett. He is widely credited with having improved BBC Three’s output, particularly in documentaries and current affairs.

When Mr Cohen took over BBC Three in 2007, it had a reputation for highly combative programme titles, including F*** Off I’m Ginger and Help Me Anthea, I’m Infested. By contrast Mr Cohen’s commissions have included Young Voters’ Question Time, in the run-up to the general election; Blood, Sweat and Takeaways, an investigative series about globalisation; and Women, Weddings, War and Me, a documentary on the treatment of women in Afghanistan which achieved the highest-ever “audience appreciation” score among viewers for a BBC factual programme.

During his time at Channel 4 prior to joining BBC Three, Mr Cohen ran the youth channel E4 - and, with it, Celebrity Big Brother. Previously, though, he had been Channel 4’s head of documentaries, and had been in charge of the documentary strand Cutting Edge.

Related Articles

“Danny Cohen is one of the most talented TV executives of his generation,” said Miss Bennett. “He has a deep understanding of public service broadcasting and a finely developed sense of what audiences of all ages are looking for, things which are hugely important as Controller of the UK’s most popular channel.”

Mr Cohen said: “BBC One is one of the nation’s great cultural institutions, and I’m looking forward to working with a wonderful range of talented people in the coming years. Jay Hunt’s success in the job means that the channel is currently in very good shape indeed and I hope to build on these very strong foundations.”

Mr Cohen takes up his new job immediately. The move - which relieves Miss Bennett of her caretaker role in charge of the channel - may help to speed her departure from the BBC’s public service arm. She has been in discussions about a new role with the corporation’s commercial arm, BBC Worldwide. Mr Cohen will be paid £260,000 in his new role - just shy of the£265,000 earned by Miss Hunt.